Iran v. Baha’i
by Shahla
The trials of seven Baha’i leaders have begun this week. The leaders are accused of anti-government activities, including organizing the Ashura protests, sending pictures of unrest abroad, keeping arms and ammunition in their homes, desecrating Islam, and spying for Israel. The Baha’i international community rejected all allegations and noted the Baha’i’s absolute commitment to nonviolence.
The trial was postponed from October 18, 2009, at which point the leaders were imprisoned in Evin for more than 17 months without bail. The seven leaders, all of whom live in Tehran, are Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm.
The Baha’i World News Service announced today that the trial has been, so far, “marked by numerous violations of legal due process” and asked to make the trials public. The News Service noted that the leaders’ lawyers had little access to the accused for the past two years of their detention.
The High Representative on behalf of the European Union announced concerns about the Baha’i leaders’ human rights, noting that “freedom of thought, conscience and religion is a fundamental and undeniable right which shall be guaranteed in every circumstance, in accordance with article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has signed and ratified.” The High Representative asked citizens to remember that, besides the seven leaders, 13 other members of the Baha’i community in Iran have been detained.
The Baha’i International Community’s representative to the United Nations, Diana Ala’i, stated that the leaders’ only “’crime’ is their religious belief” and that the Iranian regime was holding the prisoners unlawfully on “baseless fabrications devised by the government to further create an atmosphere of prejudice and hatred against the Iranian Baha’i community.”
Baha’i was founded in Iran in 1863 and suffered under the hands of Iran’s leadership before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Today, there are more than 300,000 followers of the faith in Iran.
